The energy consumption by systems in information and telecommunications technology is currently rising substantially throughout the world. The background to this development is the substantial increase in internet applications in two dimensions: firstly, the internet is being accessed by an ever-growing number of users. The term ‘user’ also includes automated users such as remote-controlled production or sensor systems. Secondly, applications are increasing both their bandwidth requirement in data transport between different spatially-separated components and also the requirement for automated calculations. All the growth phenomena mentioned generate a proportional growth in the energy volume consumed by telecommunications networks if one assumes that the networks are expanded in line with demand according to today's architecture and system engineering paradigms. In 2007, ICT-related energy consumption at 55.4 TWh was already 10.5% of the total energy consumption in Germany. Without counter-measures, an increase of more than 20% to approximately 66.7 TWh is expected by the year 2020 [1].
Systemically modified framework conditions apply to the procurement of this energy according to the programming decisions of the German Federal Government in the summer of 2011 (“Energy Transition” [2]). In particular, the inclusion of renewable energy suppliers such as solar and wind energy in system-relevant orders of magnitude (in 2011 approximately 20% share of power supply and approximately 12% of total end energy consumption, thus including heat and mobility [3]), will potentially lead to fluctuations in availability and price risks. Consequently, qualitatively new processes such as energy storage and load displacement must be implemented and controlled on an industrial scale.